Think back. Think way back to when you were a kid.
Specifically a kid on Christmas day. You could hardly sleep because you knew that in the morning, there’d be something special for you under the tree.
The excitement, the anticipation. And then, the sheer exhilaration as you saw something under the tree with your name on it.
This isn’t an unfamiliar feeling. It’s positive, it’s happy. You loved the excitement, and this is one of many things that gave you a positive feeling about Christmas for the rest of your childhood. If you’re lucky enough, you may even feel that now come the holiday season!
This feeling is the basic premise of an unboxing experience and another way to leverage emotion in marketing.
The emotions that child felt are the same emotions that ecommerce brands can evoke in their customers.
This article will touch on:
- What exactly an unboxing experience is
- How such a concept can be beneficial to your online store
- How to create an unboxing experience for your brand
Let’s dive in:
What is ‘unboxing’?
Unboxing is a tricky word to describe. It’s another way to say unpacking or opening a product that you’ve received in the mail.
The experience of unboxing
The unboxing experience, on the other hand, is all the feelings and emotions that you go through from the moment that order arrives at your door to the moment you hold or use the actual product for the first time.
To your grandparents, such a concept may seem bizarre and a little…well, weird. Taking shoes out of the box they came in was never an ‘experience’ of any kind.
But there’s no arguing that it’s a ‘thing’.
Head to YouTube, put ‘unboxing’ into your search bar, and you’ll get a better idea for what unboxing is – one far better than any words can surmise.
So as you can see, there is a wealth of videos of people unboxing products from other brands.
Unboxing videos
81% of shoppers research products before buying. The chances are that you’re one of them.
72% of shoppers won’t take any buying action until they’ve read a review of the brand or product.
Conversion rates increase almost 400% when high-value items have positive reviews.
As you saw earlier, there are a plethora of YouTube videos about unboxing products. So if one of your customers creates user-generated content about your product in the form of an unboxing video, the chances are that it will influence many potential customers’ decisions.
And when that unboxing video is made, would you prefer your product is presented to the world looking like this?
Or this?
The answer is quite simple, right?
But being in a video and user-generated content isn’t the only reason to create an unboxing experience. The person making the video is what’s important – the customer.
As an online seller, your packaging is the first physical touchpoint your customer has with your brand. An unboxing experience is a continuation of that first touchpoint, with a wealth of other benefits.
Benefits for ecommerce brands
Remember earlier when you read about those emotions that you felt during the holidays as a kid?
Now that we’re all (a little) older, that excitement and anticipation is still there come Christmas.
But it’s also there when you arrive home and see an Amazon box at the door.
It’s also there when you see the delivery guy walking to your front door.
With a customer’s senses heightened, a good ecommerce brand knows to leverage these emotions, as it’s now that the customer is most impressionable.
Designing the unboxing experience
What exactly goes into a good unboxing experience?
There’s much more to it than throwing in a whole lot of freebies on top of your product.
Through clever packaging design, both physically and visually, your aim is to create something that leaves a customer thinking, ‘I really got a lot more than I thought I would’.
There are three types of packaging you should address.
Brand managers can customise all three types to create a comprehensive unboxing experience. But, for many ecommerce brands offering an unboxing experience, tertiary packaging isn’t relevant.
Primary packaging
Put basically, primary packaging is the packaging that makes physical contact with your product.
For example, primary packaging for a cosmetics brand is the tub, tincture bottle or tube that contains the cosmetics product itself. This type of packaging is obviously essential and is a little harder to innovate regarding size, shape and so on. However, graphic design options are endless.
It’s worth noting that for many ecommerce brands, the primary packaging may be the only form of packaging.
Therefore, your mailer box or shipping bag may be the only canvas you have on which to build your unboxing experience.
It’s more than just a box.
It’s essential to remember that there’s more to packaging than ’a box’. Many brands fall into the pitfall of using a box simply because that’s what packaging is, right? A box?
This is a costly mistake, not just for your storage space but also for your wallet and the environment. Many other customisable shipping solutions can replace a heavy, corrugated cardboard mailer box and still provide a unique and branded unboxing experience.
Durable clothing can be sent in an expandable kraft mailer, ideal for brands with a minimalist brand book.
For socks, gloves, tea, coffee, small sweets and other clothing accessories, paper cans that are sealed with some custom tape are all that’s needed.
For brands that have sustainability woven into their DNA, there are many eco packaging options. While cardboard is recyclable, it takes a lot of energy to break it down to pulp to be reused. If you really want to lower your carbon footprint, consider plant-based compostable mailers.
As you can see, there are many different mediums that you can use as the basis of your unboxing experience.
Void filler
Added security and a little extra elegance. These are the two benefits of using an extra material to fill up the empty space inside your packaging.
Not only does it create a fantastic backdrop when your customer opens the box, but it can add a sense of class and elegance. This is vital for brands that use luxury as a unique selling point.
Void filler commonly comes in the form of custom tissue wrap or wood wool. Tissue wrap and tissue paper can be designed in just about any colour and have your brand’s logo replicated in many unique and exciting patterns all over it.
Wood wool is simply wood shavings that create a cushion around your product. It can also be dyed in many colours to stay on-brand.
Whether you’re an ‘eco-brand’ or not, it’s best to stay away from bubble wrap. While satisfying, it’s a single-use, oil-based plastic that wreaks absolute havoc, no matter how it’s disposed of.
Product presentation
Product presentation is the first part of designing an unboxing experience about design rather than the products used in the unboxing experience.
An excellent place to start is with products you’ve purchased and received in the mail in the past. What was the last thing you got that, upon opening, made you think, ‘this is a bit fancy’?
Work backwards from there.
What do you want your customer to see when they first open their packaging?
Remember that excitement that you read about earlier? If your product can be seen straight away, that’s the end of that excitement. Prolong that excitement a little more by wrapping a product in tissue paper.
You can carry over this excitement to parts of your brand that aren’t just the product. Throwing in a handwritten note will make the customer feel like they’ve brought into something special – because, well, they have. While not possible on a giant scale, larger first-time orders may warrant a particular type of handwritten note.
Consider throwing in a card with some form of discount for a return purchase. With their senses heightened, your customers know that they’ll be able to get another product of comparable quality from the same brand, thus invoking similar emotions, but get all that for cheaper, too.
Copy & Design
Copy and graphic design are what really makes your unboxing experience ‘feel’ like something.
Consider printing a greeting or a ‘thank you’ on the inside of the lid of your box.
Saying thanks is not only a nice thing to do; it’s a great way to increase customer engagement, which then has ripple effects on customer retention and brand loyalty. All this by a simple greeting or ‘thank you’ printed on the inside of the box.
One common and fascinating packaging trend is to have a simple, minimalistic exterior packaging design while featuring heavy patterns and colours on the inside of the box. This initially plays down the unboxing experience and extinguishes a bit of that ‘customer excitement’ when they first get their box. When the box is opened, that excitement comes roaring back as the feeling of ‘something new’ springs back to life.
Whatever type of design and copy you use on your box, make sure that it’s on-brand. Use the same fonts, typography and imagery to ensure that your branding is replicated consistently on your website, as well as your unboxing experience.
Another design method is to take a step back – focus on creating an external packaging design that assures your customer that they made the right decision buying from you, and then letting the product inside the box do the talking.
Below, you can see how the colour of the clothing that’s been purchased does all the branding, while the simple white and black print of the packaging does all it needs to do.
This is a fine example of taking a step back with your packaging design and letting the product be front and centre.
Secure delivery
The most mind-blowing unboxing experience known to many is useless if the product doesn’t get there safely and securely.
While mailer boxes can be overkill for durable items like clothing, they are triple-corrugated, meaning that they can survive even the laziest courier throwing it into the back of their van.
Add some extra security with branded tape. It’s the branded tape that gets the first interaction during your unboxing experience. Tape with a logo shows that you paid attention to details that you didn’t necessarily have to. In other words, it tells your customer precisely how you value your brand and its appearance.
If you’ve gone all out on an unboxing experience, your primary packaging may actually become part of the product itself. Slapping shipping pockets and delivery details onto a detailed mailer box destroys that. Consider keeping your box in tip-top condition by putting it inside a mailer bag.
Made from a plastic resit or corn by-product, compostable mailers protect your packaging (and its contents) from water, dirt, dust, and most other elements. And, if something should fall out of your box, it’ll stay inside the bag.
Over to you
You’ve just seen the very basics of what an unboxing experience is, why it’s important and how to create one.
In parting, it’s important to remember that an unboxing experience isn’t about ‘more’. It’s not about adding and adding to leave an impression. It’s about design. It’s about design that compliments your product and your brand’s values. As the first physical touchpoint between you and your customer, packaging is the best place for precisely that.
Armed with this knowledge, it’s now up to you to take your existing packaging supplies and create a memorable experience for your customers.
About the author
Phil is a bearded Australian living and working in Poland. When he’s not taking Packhelp’s packaging supplies to the world, he can be found trying not to kill his plants, pretending to be a stormtrooper, or hanging out with his dog.
Leave A Comment